The Civil Guard’s Nature Protection Service (Seprona) has closed a factory near Puertollano (Ciudad Real) that managed potentially dangerous animal waste from all over Castilla-La Mancha (SANDACH Category 1) due to serious biosanitary and environmental irregularities.
These are bodies or parts of animals suspected of being infected with diseases and which present a greater risk of being able to transmit them, animals slaughtered by application of security measures eradication of the diseasethe animals of experimentationas well as products from animals that have been administered prohibited substances or contaminantsdue to numerous and serious biosanitary and environmental irregularities, as detailed by the Civil Guard in a statement.
Specifically, four people are being investigated as alleged perpetrators of catastrophic risk crimes, against natural resources and the environment, against workers’ rights and falsification of documents, promoting the shutdown of factories
Hazardous materials accumulated in the factory.
The first warning voices reached Seprona in August 2023 due to the bad smells that some citizens of Puertollano denounced. They had then confirmed that the stench was caused by a fire in one of their machines, a flour cooler, which in July required manual cooling of the waste.
Later, in March 2024, The representative of a company dedicated to the transport of this type of waste reported some unpaid bills for services provided to the company investigated and reported that trailers loaded with corpses had accumulated at the processing planta tanker truck intended to collect leachate from animal carcasses and reported serious irregularities regarding the irregular storage of animal fats.
Similarly, he referred to the great danger to which the workers were exposed from the factory because of the gases released from the decomposing organic matter, which seriously endanger the lives of workers.
Unpurified discharges
Immediately, the Seprona unit verified the information and took samples from the nearby stream called Bermeja, corresponding to the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation, where industrial leachates were dumped directly without purification.
According to the Civil Guard, “the irregularities observed were very numerous and very serious, so much so that were incompatible with the activity of this plant“either because of the lack of authorisations and official records, or because of the biosanitary risk that the operators were running, as well as the environmental risk”.
Condition in which the factory was located.
When the competent regional authority paralyzed the activity, the Civil Guard monitored compliance with the paralysis, so that for several weeks, industry officials ignored the ministry’s order.
This case was assigned the collection and management service for this type of waste throughout the territory of Castilla-La Mancha.
Thousands of tons of materials called “waste”, mixtures of fats and meat flours, were immobilized, which were stored irregularly in various warehouses outside the industry premises, this waste being made available to the General Directorate of Agricultural Management.
